Too Good To Be True
by Deltree
Summary: Ianto is still struggling with accepting Jack's disappearance when he meets someone new. Thing is, the man is almost too good to be true and Ianto may find himself regretting his choice to accept that first drink when the truth finally comes out. Janto.
1. Just Some Guy

Title: Too Good to Be True

Pairing: Jack/Ianto, OC/Ianto, mentions of Ianto/Lisa, Gwen/Rhys, maybe some Owen/Tosh

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood or its characters.

Warnings: Language, slash

Summary: Jack is gone and Ianto is trying to just forget about him but can't. Then Ianto meets someone outside work. Thing is, the guy seems too good to actually be true. After all, nothing good can happen to Ianto Jones. Or can it?

AN: And, for a timeline, this is begins in those months that Jack was gone, but continues as a completely AU Season 2. And, just so people know, I _can't_ write kissing or sex scenes. They just don't work.

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Chapter #1: Just Some Guy

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The first few months after Jack's disappearance had been hard. They hadn't known what to do with themselves after replaying the CCTV footage and discovering that Jack had actually left of his own free will. What _were_ they supposed to do now? Their boss had abandoned them and they were all alone.

Nobody had wanted to step up to replace Jack, Owen saying he didn't want the responsibility, Gwen saying she was still the new girl, and Ianto and Tosh not even in the running for some reason or other.

But eventually Gwen, after a long week full of argument after argument and a disastrous outing involving a roaming pack of space badgers, finally stepped up as leader and the four of them had gotten down to business. Jack was gone, but the Rift still existed and Cardiff needed them.

Some things changed. Without Jack they had one too few people to go into the field so Ianto was called upon more often as a field agent. Without Jack, the four of them needed to depend on each other even more than before and they grew closer. They learned new ways of interacting with each other and even spent time together outside of work. A new phenomenon that led to one late night, after they had all just gotten back from a standard Weevil hunt.

None of them had been injured and they'd all still been pumped on the sheer adrenaline that only a mad chase through the streets of Cardiff and a successful capture could bring. As a result, Owen had gotten it into his head that they needed to go out for a drink. Gwen had agreed and the two of them had then spent a little while convincing Tosh and Ianto of the brilliance of this idea. Eventually Ianto and Tosh agreed too and the four found themselves in a small, but crowded, pub, seated at a table towards the back and just having some fun.

"Oh my God," Gwen said, nearly doubled over laughing at some story Owen was telling. "And – and remember when he did . . . when he did that thing?" she asked, waving a hand in circles around the area of her head to indicate the thing in question. She was clearly already on her way to getting a more than a little drunk.

"That thing with his head?" Owen said, seeming much more sober. Gwen nodded, still laughing, and Owen shook his head, trying to look disgusted but not quite able to get rid of the smirk on his face. "Oh yeah. I remember." He tipped his beer at Ianto, who was looking politely confused, and said, "I tell you, mate. Some things you just shouldn't have to see that early in the morning."

Tosh smiled slightly at this and sipped her own beer quietly.

"And this was when?" Ianto asked, still politely confused, as he didn't remember the alien from the story.

"Umm . . ." Gwen tried to think, screwing up her face in intense thought. "Last October?" she guessed and turned to Owen to see if he knew.

"No," Tosh said, shaking her head. "No, it was December."

"You sure?" Gwen asked, turning to Tosh now.

"Definitely. I remember the Santa from the mall that morning," Tosh replied.

"Oh _yeah,_" Gwen said, clearly remembering this now too as she sat back in her seat with a smile. "Jack said something about sitting on Santa's lap."

There was an odd pause as there always was whenever Jack's name was mentioned. Then Owen took another swing of his drink only to discover that it was empty. Looking at his empty bottle in disgust, he pushed it away and asked, "Alright, whose turn is it to get the next round?"

Ianto sighed and put down his own drink. "Mine, I suppose." He looked at each of his coworkers to get their drink orders. "Everybody wants the same?"

Everyone nodded so Ianto stood up from his seat and started to politely push his way through the crowd to get to the bar. Once there, he noted that the bartender seemed busy at the other end and settled in for what may be a long wait.

Leaning lightly against the bar counter, he turned to look out at the crowd, watching as strangers crowded each other, some pushing their way closer to the bar, others already at the bar and shouting for the busy bartender, and still others just watching the small TV screen and shouting at the football game shown there. Ianto was surprised to note that he was smiling slightly as he watched these strangers go about their night.

When Jack had left, he'd been devastated. Before, he and Jack had shared a loose arrangement of casual shagging. Usually whenever Jack was bored or horny, Ianto would stay late after work and they would have some fun together. And that was all it was to Jack—some fun. He'd made that perfectly clear. But that didn't mean Ianto hadn't felt anything for the older man anyway. Oh, he'd cursed himself for starting the arrangement in the first place, but he'd still kept it going because he had found himself liking what Jack was offering. Towards the end, he'd been willing to do anything just to keep Jack coming back to him and if that meant he was considered only a part-time shag then so be it.

Those first few weeks after Jack had left had been difficult. Jack had become so important to him so quickly and Ianto had found himself lost without the older man. But he had persevered, just like always, and he was starting to find that he was gradually getting over him. It felt good in a way. Liberating even. He still missed Jack of course, and there was still a hole in his life that the older man had once filled, but it didn't hurt as much anymore and he now knew that everything really would be all right in the end.

Glancing back to see that the bartender looked like he might be working his way over to Ianto's side of the bar, Ianto turned back around, only to be bumped into by the person next to him.

"Oh. Sorry," the person said absentmindedly, glancing at him and then away. But then, seeming to realize just what he'd just seen, the man turned back to Ianto and seemed to give him a more proper once-over. Starting to smile, the man said, "I mean, _hello_."

Ianto gave the man one of his small smiles just to acknowledge him and then turned back to wondering if the bartender would ever get over to his side of the bar. That first movement in his direction had been a false start and the bartender was still all the way on the other side of the bar.

"So . . ." the man he'd bumped into said, starting to lean in closer to Ianto with a grin on his face. "Come here often?"

Distracted, Into barely threw the man a questioning look before leaning over and waving a hand at the bartender, trying to get his attention.

"Alright, fine," the man said, seeming to realize that he barely had Ianto's attention, "That _was_ a bit of a sad attempt. What's your name?"

"Hmm?" Ianto said, still busy waving at the bartender. Seeming to realize that someone was talking to him, he drew back in his hand and turned to the man next to him. "Oh I'm sorry. What was that?"

"Ooh, an accent," the man said, really starting to grin now that he had Ianto's attention. "I love a man with an accent. What's your name? I'm Stephen." He held out a hand to Ianto and, not wanting to be rude, Ianto shook it.

"Ianto," he said simply, half of his attention still on the bartender over the man's shoulder.

"Lovely name," the man, Stephen, said, still grinning that grin. "Goes right along with the lovely face."

Hearing this, Ianto blinked and then really turned to look at the man for the first time. He was tall, just a few inches taller than Ianto himself, with a strong jaw and carefully styled blonde hair. Put together with the British accent and he was quite the sight. Not someone Ianto really minded a flirt from, though the man was being a bit brave flirting with him in the middle of this everyday pub. He was just lucky Ianto wasn't one of the everyday homophobic masses.

It reminded him of Jack and maybe that was why Ianto decided to flirt back.

"You say that to all the boys, do you?" Ianto asked, something of a smile growing on his face.

"Only the special ones," Stephen replied cheekily. "And let me say," he continued, giving Ianto another long look-over, his voice liberally soaked in erotic promise, "you look like you could be one of the _very _special ones." Eyes returning to Ianto's face, Stephen sounded almost amused as he asked, "You always get this dressed up for pub-night, do you?"

Ianto looked down at his three-piece suit in some embarrassment. "Ah . . . no," he said then looked back up at the other man with a small self-effacing smile. "I just got off work actually."

"Yeah?" Stephen replied, actually looking interested. "What do you do?"

"Nothing interesting, I'm afraid," Ianto said, looking away for a second and giving a little shrug before turning back to Stephen. "I work at the local tourist office."

"Ah," Stephen said with a nod as if he understood. Settling back against the bar counter, he continued, "Well, that's better than me. I'm still in the process of looking for a job at the moment. Just got into Cardiff the other day."

Ianto grinned at this. "And you're already at the pub."

That made Stephen grin again in return, turning back to Ianto to say, "Of course I am! You meet all the best people at the pub. I met you, didn't I?"

Ianto smiled and looked away, shaking his head.

"Come on," Stephen said as he straightened up. "Let me buy you drink."

"Oh no," Ianto said, turning back to Stephen and shaking his head again with another smile. "You couldn't."

Stephen just smiled and offered again. "No, I'm serious. Let me buy you a drink and then we can go over into that corner over there and get," here Stephen started to get a mock lecherous look on his face, waggling his eyebrows at Ianto as he said, "better acquainted."

"No, really," Ianto said as he shook his head again, though it was clear he was amused and seriously tempted. "You couldn't. I'm here with some friends and it's my round."

"Then let me buy them all a drink," Stephen offered, "Whatever it takes to get you over in that corner."

Ianto smiled yet again but looked about to turn Stephen down for a third time when he heard his name being shouted.

"Ianto! Ianto!" Owen said as he rudely pushed his way through the crowd at the bar. Finally seeming to notice Ianto's position, Owen began pushing in that direction, eventually coming to a stop right in front of him. "Shit. There you are," he said, sounding frustrated and impatient. "What the fuck is taking so long?"

Stephen raised a brow at the language. "And who is this?"

Owen seemed to finally realize Stephen's existence and gave the man a dirty look. "Owen Harper, mate. Who the fuck are you?"

Ianto sighed but introduced the two. "Owen this is Stephen. Stephen, Owen."

Owen glanced between Ianto and Stephen suspiciously and quickly seemed to realize what was going on. "Oh. _Oh_." He looked at Ianto as if disgusted. "Oh I can't believe you. We send you for drinks and I catch you trying to pull. What's the matter? You finally realize lover boy's never coming back?"

Ianto winced at the mention of Jack, but got that under control quickly and looked at Owen steadily as he said, "I'm still getting the drinks. Why don't you go back to the table while I do that?" He wasn't going to feel guilty. Jack had abandoned them and the two of them had never been serious to begin with. There was no reason he shouldn't be flirting with whomever he wished.

Owen shook his head at that idea. "No way. I leave you now and you'll just get caught up in this bloke's bloody eyes again or what have you. _I'll_ get the drinks. You go have fun. God knows you need it."

Ianto frowned. This didn't sound like the Owen he knew. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," Owen replied irritably, "Maybe getting laid will do you some good. Get you to stop being so goddamn anal about every bloody little thing." Owen shooed him off. "Go. I don't want to see you again until tomorrow morning. Doctor's orders and all that."

Ianto still wasn't sure about this, but he wasn't going to turn down Owen when he was feeling generous. "Well, okay . . ." He turned back to Stephen. "Is that drink offer still open?"

Stephen's smile was brilliant as he replied, "Of course."

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"This is a nice place," Stephen said, looking around at Ianto's apartment building.

Ianto didn't say anything in reply, a little nervous about having offered to bring Stephen back to his place. How long ago had it been since he'd actually done something like this? Actually had somebody come back to his place? It certainly hadn't been Jack and Lisa seemed ages ago.

Finally the lock clicked and Ianto swung open the door, allowing Stephen entrance.

Looking around, Stephen nodded as he walked further into Ianto's apartment. Then he turned to look at Ianto himself. Seeming to realize that Ianto was a little nervous, he offered, "You know, we don't have to do this. We can just—

"No," Ianto interrupted him as he shook his head and dropped his keys in the little container on his kitchen counter then turned back to Stephen. "I want to do this. I _need_ to do this." Coming closer, Ianto grabbed Stephen by the shirt and pulled him in closer for an almost chaste kiss.

Wanting more than this, Stephen pulled Ianto even closer by the folds of his three-piece suit so that their hips touched and deepened this kiss.

Things just went on from there.

The next morning, Ianto woke to the novel sensation of having someone else in his bed with him. It had been years since that had happened. It certainly had never happened with Jack. He was almost surprised to find that he kind of liked it.

Turning around in bed, he smiled at the sight of Stephen's sleeping face. Last night had been fantastic.

Then, turning to look at his alarm clock, he noticed that he had five minutes before his alarm went off. Deciding to just get up and get ready for his day, he turned off his alarm and got out of bed to go take a shower.

Returning almost fifteen minutes later having shaved and showered, he went to his closet to pick out a suit then went into his kitchen to drink his morning coffee and eat his morning piece of toast.

Finishing that, he went back into his bedroom and got out a post-it note where he wrote a quick message: 'Went to work . . ." Here he paused, having to reassure himself that it was perfectly natural to want to move on and that Jack would be happy for him before writing, 'Call me: 555-4576' He stuck this to Stephen's shoulder and went to pick up his keys and go to work.

Now he'd just have to see if Stephen called.


	2. Jack's Return

I want to thank all those that reviewed including evilpinkbutterfly101, WickedWitchoftheSE, gaia-x-goddess, Space-Invader-x, Rai Guyver, x-Athenea-x, Purple Sox, and .

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Chapter #2: Jack Returns

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Three days later, Owen, Tosh, Gwen, and Ianto came walking back into the Hub after a long few hours of chasing the latest alien threat through the streets of Cardiff. It had been a difficult chase, culminating in a hostage situation that had quickly grown tense, and Owen had not made things better by running off at the mouth.

"Yes, but did you really need to say that to him?" Gwen asked Owen irritably.

"What?" Owen said in his defense. "That I thought he was disgusting? He _was_ disgusting! Did you hear what he said to Tosh?"

"That doesn't mean you had to go and insult him!" Gwen said, slamming the car keys down on her desk and glaring at Owen. "You just made everything worse!"

"Fine," Owen said, just wanting Gwen to get over it already. "Then the next time an alien goes and makes a disgustingly sexual remark about a teammate I'll just leave it to it, shall I?"

"I really didn't mind," Tosh said, obviously just wanting Owen and Gwen to stop fighting.

"Just so long as you keep your gob shut!" Gwen replied angrily, before turning away from Owen, plopping down into her desk chair, and turning on her computer.

Owen rolled his eyes and motioned for Ianto to follow him to autopsy bay, leaving Gwen behind to grumble to herself and get started on her mission report. "Come on Tea-boy. Let's get that scratch looked at."

Ianto had been scratched by a nail poking out of a board in the construction site they had had the final showdown in after being thrown off his feet and into the wall, leaving a six-inch gash in his leg that was still bleeding somewhat. But it was the only injury that had been acquired this time out and for that they were grateful.

Ianto followed Owen to the autopsy bay willingly enough and hopped up to sit on the autopsy table, rolling up his pant leg so that the doctor could get at the wound.

Saying nothing, Owen got out the antiseptic and started to dab at the gash. Ianto winced slightly, but kept himself from hissing. Noticing the pain he was in, Owen smirked, but hurried it up with the antiseptic, finally finishing and putting the little tube away.

"Alright, you were lucky this time," Owen said as he got out a medical patch and started to wrap up the gash on Ianto's leg. "You don't need stitching or anything like that. Just keep this patch on and it should be alright." Finishing up, Owen allowed Ianto to jump off the table with a nod and Ianto headed for the coffee machine to get it started up. The team looked exhausted and would surely be needing some caffeine.

Halfway there though, Ianto's mobile began to ring. Everyone looked up at the sound, even Owen who had gone back to putting his medical supplies away. This was probably the first time they had ever heard Ianto's phone ring. Even Ianto looked somewhat surprised as he dug around in his suit jacket pocket for his phone.

Taking it out, he put it to his ear and asked, "Yes?" There was a pause as whoever it was on the other end answered and Ianto said, "Yes, this is Ianto. Stephen?" Another pause and Ianto smiled. "Yes, I remember."

Gwen and Tosh exchanged a look, each obviously wondering who was on the other side.

"No. No, this isn't a bad time," Ianto said, putting a hand up to cover his other ear in order to hear better and turning away from the others so that they couldn't read his face. "What is it you needed?" Another, longer pause then Ianto said, "Well . . . Okay, that sounds wonderful." Another pause whre they couldn't see his face. "Yes. Yes, I'll see you there. 7 o'clock. Torettzi's. Bye." Ianto hung up the phone and turned back to the others with a small smile on his face.

Gwen smiled, happy he was smiling but curious. "And who was that?"

"Hmm?" Ianto said, seeming to come out of some thought to turn to her. Seeming to realize that the others had been listening in on his phone call, he said, "Oh, no one, really. Just this bloke I know."

"I know who it is," Owen said, coming out from the autopsy bay with a smirk. "It's that bloke from the bar the other night. The blond one."

Gwen looked intrigued, turning to Owen as he seemed to have the answers. "Didn't you say Ianto went home with that one?"

Owen nodded, that same smirk still on his face. "Yep." Obviously, he was loving the fact that he was completely disrupting Ianto's privacy.

Tosh giggled as Ianto looked somewhat embarrassed and Gwen turned back to her fellow countryman with a mischievous look. "So I take it the night went well?"

Ianto tried to pretend this wasn't making him even more embarrassed by putting on a serious face. "He was very nice."

Gwen still looked mischievous. "Oh I bet he was."

Tosh laughed outright and Ianto shot her a betrayed look before turning back to Gwen to say, "Not that it's any of your business, but he was the perfect gentleman."

Gwen looked like she didn't quite believe him, narrowing her eyes with another smile as she asked, "So there was no wild man-sex?"

Owen started to look a little disgusted. "Oh, I really don't need to know this," he said, turning away and heading back to his desk.

Ianto blushed. "Now I didn't say that."

"Really?!" Gwen asked, leaning forward excitedly. Ianto only blushed again and, looking amused, Gwen pointed at him and said with yet another smile, "Oh, look at you blush. I bet he was good."

Owen rolled his eyes as he dropped into his desk chair. "Please. Spare us the details."

Ianto didn't say anything to that, instead he turned around to head for the coffee machine again and finally turned it on. When he came back a few minutes later with her coffee, Gwen had to give into her curiosity, asking, "What did he want?"

"Who?" Ianto asked as he sidestepped her foot and went to hand Tosh her own coffee. Smiling up at him, Tosh thanked him quietly before going back to monitoring the Rift.

"You know who," Gwen said, following Ianto with her eyes.

Ianto shot her a look then went to give Owen his coffee, not saying anything else. Gwen wouldn't have this though and when he came back up from the autopsy bay she asked him again.

"Come on," she said, giving him a friendly smile. "We won't tell anyone. What'd he want?"

Ianto sighed, obviously a little annoyed by her persistence. "If you simply must know," he began.

"And I must," Gwen said.

Ianto shot her a look, though he was clearly amused. "He asked me out on a date," he said.

"Oh Ianto," Gwen said, looking happy and excited for him. "That's wonderful! I mean, I thought you were going to . . ."she trailed off here, though Ianto knew where she had been going with it and had to agree. He'd expected to be moping about Jack for a long while too. Pretending she hadn't said anything even hinting about Jack's disappearance, she continued. "But this is great! Isn't it great, Tosh?" Gwen asked, dragging Tosh into their conversation.

Tosh smiled at him, obviously just as happy for him though she had known better than to pry. "It really is. Congratulations."

"God," Owen griped from his spot by his desk. "You all act as if he's pregnant or something. It's just a date."

"Yeah, but this is _Ianto_," Gwen said, turning to Owen. "We all thought he was going to . . ." she paused, obviously not wanting to say what they thought he was going to do in front of him. Eventually, she continued, "Especially after . . . you know . . ." she trailed off again awkwardly, Jack's name still somewhat of a taboo.

Ianto smiled at her to show her that he had no hard feelings about her bringing this up.

"Fine," Owen said irritably, "But don't expect me to throw him any parties."

Gwen frowned, some of her irritation with Owen coming back. "We're not asking you to throw him a party. Just a little happiness would be nice."

"I don't do happiness," Owen replied.

Ianto rolled his eyes at their familiar bickering and then decided to go back up to man the Tourist Office.

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Ianto and Stephen went on that date. And it was fun. A lot of fun. Ianto found himself laughing more than he had in all the months since Jack had left. So when the next morning came, the sex from the night before being both fantastic and exhausting, and Stephen asked Ianto on yet another date, Ianto, of course, said yes. And when the time for that date came, he had just as much fun and agreed to a third date.

Before he had realized it a month had passed and Ianto was surprised to find that he had somehow gotten himself a boyfriend. He had no idea how that had happened. He certainly hadn't been looking for one. But it was nice all the same.

It seemed that with every day that Ianto knew Stephen he was finding more and more things that he liked about the other man. By the time two months had passed he was almost certain that Stephen was turning into someone that he could possibly one day love. Not so soon though. Not after Lisa and Jack. Those two had effectively broken his heart in all the ways that a heart could be broken so he wasn't about to jump on the love bandwagon all that quickly.

Still it was nice to have a boyfriend, to have someone that cared. It would have been nicer if Stephen could know what he did for a living as then he wouldn't have to put up with all the questions whenever Ianto was pulled away from a date by an emergency. As it was he was starting to suspect that Stephen didn't trust him when he continued to say he worked at a tourist office. Ianto wouldn't have trusted him himself either, but there was little he could do and Stephen was being marvelous about the whole thing. He accepted that Ianto had secrets with only a few questions and didn't pressure him to tell him everything. It was nice to have someone that trusted him like that.

But, things did have to change, and then, one day, things did. Jack came back. He just walked straight into the Hub one day with a smile and absolutely no explanations as to where he had gone.

"Hey, kids," Jack said, grinning at them from his spot at the bottom of the lift. "Did you miss me?"

Nobody moved, each of them keeping their gun trained on their newly returned boss as they tried to overcome the shock. Gwen came out of it first.

"You _bastard_!" she shouted, putting down her gun to go over and shove Jack backwards. "Where the hell have you been?" she yelled in his face. But then she suddenly hugged him, a great big bear hug that Jack returned with equal enthusiasm.

Ianto put down his own gun as Owen and Tosh came out of their surprise and went closer to ask their own questions. Ianto stayed back, he wasn't sure what he was feeling about Jack's return, but it wasn't happy. Why did the man have to return _now_ of all times. Just when Ianto was getting his life back.

"You have a lot of nerve, Harkness," Owen was saying.

"I had to find my Doctor," Jack said as the only explanation he would give.

"And did you?" Gwen asked quietly as she finally let Jack go, obviously the only one of them that had any clue what the hell he meant by that. "Did he fix you?"

"Nah," Jack said, smiling that big old Jack Harkness smile. "Who could mess with this level of perfection?" he continued with the same old Jack Harkness arrogance. Then he finally seemed to realize that Ianto hadn't moved and he turned to Ianto with a softer smile. "Hey."

Ianto didn't smile back. He only had one question. "Why did you come back?"

Jack seemed hurt by that. "I came back for you." For a moment Ianto thought Jack was actually talking about him as his gaze hadn't moved, but then Jack included the others in his gaze as he continued, "For all of you. I missed you."

Owen snorted. "Oh I'm sure. I mean, who wouldn't?"

Gwen didn't like that, but she was still smiling as she smacked Owen on the arm.

Ianto rolled his eyes and had to get away from the happy reunion. "I suppose I'll make some coffee then," he said and even he could hear the bitterness in his voice. The others didn't seem to notice though, except Tosh who looked back at him with a sympathetic smile, clearly remembering the early days of Jack's disappearance and their many conversations on the subject. Jack had already turned back to Gwen and Owen who were trying without success to grill him about where he had been. Jack was remaining stubbornly silent on this topic though and clearly none of their questions were about to be answered.

Ianto shook his head and went to get the coffee ready.

Later, it was nearing the end of the day and Owen and Gwen had tired on the topic of where Jack had been when Jack approached Ianto in the Tourist Office. Ianto had retreated there hours ago when being around Jack had become too hard to bear.

"Hey," Jack said softly as he stepped through the secret entrance and into the Tourist Office itself.

Ianto looked up from the brochure he was reading in his boredom, but then went right back to reading all about the wonders of the Welsh countryside. "Hello, sir."

Jack winced. "Do you think you could maybe . . . quit with the sir now? I mean, it's so . . ." Jack trailed off, clearly uncertain about what exactly it was. "I don't know," he continued, "I just don't like it."

"If you want, sir," Ianto said, the 'sir' added on there quite deliberately. He didn't look up from his brochure.

Jack winced again. "Alright, I know you're mad."

"Why would I be mad, sir?" Ianto asked blandly as he flipped to the next page of the brochure. This one was actually talking about a sheep farm. How fascinating.

Ianto hated sheep.

"Because . . . you know . . . I left," Jack said, clearly floundering for what to say. "I just . . . left. Without a good reason to too."

"I'm sure you thought it was a good reason," Ianto said, still blandly, reading on about feeding times and other things visitors to the sheep farm could do. "Not my spot to say otherwise, really."

"Yeah . . . about that . . ." Jack said slowly, leaning against the Tourist Office desk and, from out of the corner of his eye, Ianto could see that he looked decidedly nervous. Well wasn't that something. "What would you say about you and me going out for dinner sometime?" Jack asked, not looking at Ianto just as Ianto wasn't looking at him. "Or a movie," he continued nervously. "Or . . . or something. You can choose. Whatever you want."

Ianto finally put down his brochure and turned to Jack. "Are you asking me out on a _date_, sir?"

"Well . . . yeah." Jack grinned at Ianto hopefully, clearly thinking that he was coming out of the woods now that Ianto was actually talking to him.

Ianto stared at him for a moment then went back to his brochure. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested. This was just what he'd wanted all along. But he couldn't quite get it out of his head that Jack was just asking him because he knew Ianto wanted it and not because Jack himself actually wanted to go on a date. It was just a ploy to make Ianto forgive him. Plus Ianto already had a boyfriend and he was going to remain faithful no matter what Jack did. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said.

Jack actually looked crestfallen. "Why not? Is this because I left? Do you want me to say I'm sorry? Because I can. I'm really sorry."

Ianto shook his head, now just staring at the brochure without really reading the words. "This has nothing to do with that, sir."

Jack winced yet again. "Okay, I really mean it. Stop it with the sir. And what do you mean this has nothing to do with that? What else could it have to do with?"

Boy, Jack really was an arrogant bastard wasn't he?

"I have a boyfriend, sir" Ianto told him as flatly as possible, still not looking away from the brochure.

"You . . . _what_?"

Here, Ianto smiled somewhat and turned back to Jack to repeat, "I have a boyfriend." He was probably just a little too amused by the flabbergasted look on Jack's face, but then Jack deserved it.

"You have a boyfriend," Jack repeated slowly as if he couldn't quite believe it.

Ianto smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes."

Jack blinked, still looking a little flabbergasted. "And this happened . . . when?"

"Two months ago," Ianto informed him.

Jack blinked again. "And how long have I been gone?"

Here, Ianto frowned somewhat, a little confused as to how Jack didn't know this. "About six months."

"Oh," Jack said, clearly surprised by this fact. "Well, damn. That is a long time."

Still a little confused, Ianto could only agree. "Yes, sir."

"And you and this boyfriend . . ." Jack said, turning back to Ianto. "You're . . . happy together?" he asked, looking a little pained even as he asked this.

Ianto nodded again, though his confusion was still present and correct. "Very."

"Well okay then," Jack said, nodding to himself. "Then I guess I'll . . ." he trailed off, getting a disgusted look on his face as he continued, "leave you to that then." He shook his head as if in disbelief and repeated to himself, "Boyfriend. Wow." Laughing lightly, he said, "Next thing you'll be saying is Gwen's engaged."

Ianto frowned and wondered if he should tell Jack that Gwen was, in fact, engaged, but Jack had already disappeared down into the Hub. Shrugging it off, he turned back to his brochure. Only an hour more and then he could go home and to his date.

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TBC?


	3. Jack's Decision

Thanks to all that reviewed including Storms-Are-My-Nature, x-Athenea-x, evilpinkbutterfly101, Solsbury Girl, Purple Sox, , GoodyThreeShoes, janto-gal, leonale, gaia-x-goddess, Flabagash, Rai Guyver, and Quicksilver.

Also, I want to say sorry about how slow I was to get this chapter out, and then it's a little shorter than the other chapters too. So, sorry!

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Chapter #3: Jack's Decision

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Later that same night, Ianto and Stephen were on a date, seated over in the corner of their favorite Italian restaurant.

"So how was your day?" Stephen asked as he put his napkin in his lap and prepared to attack his linguini.

Ianto sighed and twirled his fork idly in his spaghetti. How did you tell a current boyfriend that a past love-interest has returned and asked you on a date? "It was . . . difficult, I guess."

Stephen looked up at this, somewhat concerned. "Yeah? How come?"

Ianto decided to just spit it out. "Jack came back." And with that said, he twirled some spaghetti onto his fork and put it in his mouth.

Stephen looked curious. "And who's Jack?"

Ianto chewed and finally swallowed. "My boss," he said.

Now Stephen just looked confused. "And your boss coming back . . . that's . . . that's a bad thing? Where'd he go?"

"Well . . . no," Ianto allowed, looking like he wanted to say otherwise, but knew it would be false if he did. "But me and him," he continued, "We had a . . ." He searched for the right word to describe what he and Jack had had. "A thing," he finally settled on even though that was a rather sad description. "And we don't know where he went," he added.

"A thing," Stephen repeated flatly.

"It wasn't anything serious," Ianto hurried to assure him. "It was just sex." Though, having to be honest, Ianto then added, "At least for him, it was."

"You wanted more," Stephen said, looking like he wasn't sure what to think of this discovery.

"Yes." Ianto said with a somewhat sad nod, looking down into his spaghetti and wishing it were otherwise, but having to tell the truth. "Yes, I did."

"And were you in love with him?" Stephen asked, obviously not quite sure he really wanted to know.

Ianto hesitated somewhat to answer this, but then said, "Yes. I think I was."

"And are you now?" Stephen asked intently.

That Ianto answered immediately. "No!" he said maybe a touch too loudly, looking back up at Stephen. "No, of course not," he said in a quieter tone of voice. "I'm completely over him." Though that may have been a bald-faced lie, Ianto wasn't actually going to admit that he still had feelings for Jack, not to himself and not to anybody else.

Stephen seemed to relax a bit at this answer and Ianto figured that he could probably just conveniently forget to tell him about the fact that Jack had asked him on a date.

"So I don't have to worry about you running off into his manly arms?" Stephen joked nervously, the fear obviously a very real one.

Ianto smiled. "No, you really don't. "

"Well good," Stephen said and then obviously decided that this conversation was over. "Anything else interesting happen today?"

"Not really," Ianto said and turned back to his spaghetti, "You know, life at a tourist office and all that. Not exactly the place for thrills even if there certainly is enough drama."

Stephen just looked at him, raising a brow as if to say 'Really?' Obviously he didn't believe Ianto's insistence that he worked in a tourist office anymore, but he wasn't going to say anything. Turning back to his linguini, he got a forkful and shoved it in his mouth. Chewing quickly, he swallowed and said, "Well, my day was interesting."

"Oh?" Ianto said, looking up at his boyfriend as he swallowed his latest mouthful of spaghetti. "How so?"

"Well, you know Jessica?" Stephen said, talking about a favorite co-worker. He'd eventually found a job at a local restaurant working as a waiter and he always had little stories to tell about his co-workers and customers.

"Yes?" Ianto said, remembering the co-worker in question. This particular co-worker seemed to always be at the center of the restaurant drama. Which was probably why she was Stephen's favorite.

"She's pregnant," Stephen informed Ianto with a smirk.

"No," Ianto said, looking surprised.

Stephen nodded with that same smirk on his face. "Yep. Three months now."

"And who's the father?" Ianto asked curiously even though he knew he wouldn't know the man.

"Don't know," Stephen said, obviously finding this bit of the gossip especially amusing. "She can't remember."

"No," Ianto repeated, finding this a little hard to believe. "She's slept with that many men?"

Stephen nodded, obviously still amused.

And the conversation just moved on from there, covering such topics as the increase in the rate of single mothers nowadays, Ianto's two sisters and one niece, Stephen's one brother and his evermore quest for a woman that could handle him, and the new movie that Stephen was dying to see featuring that one actor that Ianto could never remember the name of, no matter how hard he tried. It frustrated him, the not knowing. He knew everything. Why didn't he know this one little detail?

As always, Ianto was surprised at how easy it was to talk to Stephen. It was as if they'd known each other for years instead of just two measly months. He'd worried at first about how he would eventually tell Stephen of the man that had come before him, but the words had just popped out, maybe not easily but certainly easier than had been expected.

Really, Ianto was getting somewhat worried. He hadn't been this happy in a long time and it was unusual for him to ever truly have something good in his life without something bad to balance it out. He could only wonder what shock there was on the horizon for him and hope that he could survive it.

Eventually, their conversation wound to a close and they finished up their meal. Stephen paid as Ianto had paid the last time and the two of them found their way back to Ianto's apartment.

"How come we never go to your place?" Ianto found himself asking as he unlocked his door. He had just realized that he had never actually seen Stephen's place and now he was curious.

"Because yours is so much cleaner," Stephen replied, attaching himself to Ianto's side and pushing them through the door. Playfully biting at Ianto's neck, he worked his way up to Ianto's ear and whispered, "You really don't want to see my place. Pizza boxes everywhere." Then he went back to planting kisses on Ianto's neck, cheek, then mouth as Ianto blindly started to work on Stephen's shirt, unbuttoning buttons and dragging him further into the apartment.

Pulling away from the kiss, Ianto smiled. "Then why don't you just clean?"

Stephen drew back in mock-horror. "Clean? I can't _clean_." Using his foot, he closed the door behind them and worked on pushing Ianto in the direction of the bedroom.

Ianto finished with the buttons of Stephen's shirt and pushed the shirt off of the other man's shoulders, Stephen obliging him by letting go of Ianto for the moment to allow his shirt to fall to the floor. "I don't see why not," Ianto said, hands tracing Stephen's chest and moving down to work on the other man's pants.

Stephen, meanwhile, started tugging on Ianto's own shirt, tugging it over Ianto's head with a little help and then reattaching his mouth to Ianto's as soon as the shirt was on the floor. "Cleaning's against my philosophy," he mumbled into Ianto's mouth, before moving down to attack Ianto's neck, saying between kisses. "I just - can't - do it."

Ianto laughed and tugged Stephen's hips closer. Smiling at the sound, Stephen raised his head and attached his mouth to Ianto's again as the two men stumbled closer to Ianto's bedroom. Then there was no talking.

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Jack stood in his office, looking down at the main part of the Hub as the others went about their day. Owen was in the autopsy bay doing an autopsy on an alien they had captured just hours before while Gwen was at her computer doing some sort of research and Tosh and Ianto were at Tosh's computer conversing softly, supposedly about some new technology. Ianto laughed at something Tosh had said and Jack smiled slightly. It was nice to see Ianto so happy.

Jack couldn't remember the last time he had actually heard Ianto laugh and really mean it, though this was probably because he'd been away and the Ianto from before didn't really have much to laugh about. It was just . . . disappointing, he supposed, that the reason Ianto was currently so happy wasn't because of Jack. It was because of The Boyfriend, whoever the hell he was.

Jack hadn't planned for this, for Ianto to have moved on. And it wasn't fair. All this time, the whole time he had been held captive on the Valiant only two thoughts had kept him sane—that Martha would save them and that, as long as Ianto was alive, he could come home to someone would could be everything he needed.

He'd had the time to do some serious thinking while aboard that ship—not much else to do between torture sessions really—and he'd come to the conclusion that he wanted more in his life. And he wanted Ianto to be that more. No more of this casual shagging, Jack wanted the whole thing, romance and commitment and all.

And then he comes home to find that Ianto had already found all of that, but not in Jack. In somebody else.

It had been a shock. One that had hurt much more than Jack had expected. He'd expected that out of everyone he could have trusted Ianto to be there for him when he came back. But apparently in this one thing, Ianto had had a mind of his own. And no matter how hard he tried, Jack couldn't fault the younger man for moving on. It had been six months after all and Jack had never once promised Ianto anything more than great sex. Why shouldn't Ianto have moved on if the opportunity had appeared? Jack would have done the same thing if he had been in Ianto's shoes, probably even sooner than Ianto had.

Jack sighed and turned away from the view of the rest of the Hub to move back towards his desk and plop down into his chair.

He didn't know what to do. Part of him, a very strong part of him, wanted to be selfish and do all he could to break up Ianto's new relationship and take the younger man as his own. He knew he could do it. It would be easy enough as Ianto couldn't possibly have gotten over Jack as completely as he appeared to have. That just wasn't in character for the Welshman.

But Jack also knew that doing this would be wrong. Ianto was finally happy, or as close to happy as he could get, and what right did Jack have to disrupt that just because he himself desperately needed the comfort that he feared only Ianto could bring? He was still having nightmares about his time aboard the Valient and Ianto had always proven in the past to be very good at keeping his nightmares at bay whenever he did happen to fall asleep with the younger man in the same bed.

Propping his head up with one hand, Jack stared at his pile of paperwork, lost in thought, going over all the possibilities, all the chances of failure and success and the consequences of each. Eventually a knock on his door made him jump in surprise and he turned in the door's direction and called out a, "Yes?"

Pushing the door open slightly, Ianto peeked through and held up a cup of hot coffee. "Coffee, sir?" he asked.

"Ah, yes," Jack said, settling down. He smiled at Ianto as the younger man continued into the room and placed the coffee on his desk. But before Ianto could leave, Jack had to ask one question. "How are you?"

Ianto tossed him a strange look. "I'm fine, sir."

Jack winced at hearing the sir yet again. "I keep telling you. Call me Jack."

"Yes, sir," Ianto said, but then seemed to realize his slip and continued, "I mean, Jack."

Jack smiled brightly. That was probably the first time he had properly heard his name uttered by younger man and Ianto's Welsh accent made his name sound so much nicer than it actually was. Or maybe that was just because it was Ianto who had said it and thus it was a rare thing. "Thank you."

Ianto nodded, smiling slightly in some bemusement, and turned to leave.

Jack watched him as he left, the door closing softly behind him, and then turned back to his thoughts.

No it really wouldn't be fair to Ianto if he did that, would it? And Jack was trying not to be the selfish man he used to be.

So it was settled. Jack would do nothing, would just see how things with Ianto and his mysterious boyfriend went, wishing them well and watching to make sure nothing went wrong. Ianto deserved all the happiness in the world and Jack would be damned if he didn't get it.

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TBC


	4. Of Dreams and Flat Visits

I'd like to thank all those that reviewed including Fr3ya, Lifes Black Sheep, Candybree, gaia-x-goddess, perfectlyflawedx, x-Athenea-x, picky and paranoid, and its,intoxicating.

And to its,intoxicating : I've been thanking you every chapter for reviewing but your name keeps getting erased as soon as I post and no reposting will fix that. What I don't know is WHY? It's so frustrating. So just know that I am thankful and I'm not forgetting you on purpose. And now I apparently have to misspell your name with a comma or it just won't work.

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Chapter #4: Of Dreams and Flat Visits

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Jack didn't sleep anymore. Or at least he tried not to because not only was sleeping far too much like death, but sometimes he dreamed. And his dreams were never good.

But then there were times when he was just so exhausted that it was all he could do to get back to the Hub and crawl down into his bunker before he fell asleep where he stood. This was one of those nights.

"Wakey, wakey." A singsong voice and a few gentle slaps to the face when Jack didn't immediately wake up. Then the voice got stern and he was smacked roughly upside the head. "I said wake up."

Jack slowly opened his eyes to find himself back in his room on the Valiant, dangling from the chains that kept him standing day and night, the Master right in his face smiling that familiar demented grin. It was all he could do not to groan. But he wouldn't give the Master the satisfaction of seeing him discouraged so he mustered up a smile. "Morning," he said with as much cheer as he could give, as if he wasn't dangling and chained helplessly in front of a mad man.

"I have a present for you," the Master said, stilling grinning that grin and looking far too pleased with himself for it to mean anything good for Jack.

Jack barely kept the smile on his face. "Oh? Well I'm not interested."

The Master seemed amused by this. Not a good thing for Jack that he wasn't even slightly irritated. "Oh I think you will be." The Master turned to call for the guards. "Guards! Bring him in."

Jack watched with more than a little trepidation as the door to his room opened and two guards came through dragging a chained up Owen between them. His clothes torn and dirty from hard living, face streaked with soot, Owen was doing his best to thwart them by twisting and turning in their grip, so mad he was nearly spitting.

"You are going to regret this!" he was shouting, "I swear I'll kill you! I'll rip you apart with my teeth and find some device to _keep_ ripping you apart until there isn't a molecule left to identify your body! You'll just be atoms in the air and nobody will cry because everyone hates you! Or even worse! I'll—Then he seemed to notice Jack and he stopped, looking completely astounded. "Jack!"

The Master turned to Jack with a pleased grin. "I found him in North Russia trying to help save some stupid refugees. I take it you know each other?"

Jack somehow tore his horrified gaze away from Owen's dirty face and turned back to the Master with a blank expression to say, as disaffectedly as he could, "Never seen him before in my life." Hoping that this would protect Owen from some of the Master's more creative torture sessions, even if it probably wouldn't.

The Master only looked even more amused by this, the bastard. "Oh?" he said.

Jack nodded and tried to look only vaguely interested. "Yeah. Never. Why? Who is he?"

"Oh now. Don't be like that," the Master said mildly but with that same undercurrent of amusement. "And here I went through all the trouble of finding one of your little friends and bringing him to you. Don't you like your present?"

"I hate it," Jack said honestly. "I mean really," he continued less honestly, "If you wanted to find my friends you could at least bring me someone who looked remotely like them. This guy looks nothing like any of 'em. And besides, he's too scrawny. Why would I hire somebody that scrawny to fight aliens? It just wouldn't be smart."

Owen did not look amused by any of this, but he thankfully seemed to understand what Jack was doing and kept quiet. Though there was some muttering under his breath going on that hopefully the Master couldn't hear.

"And who ever said you were smart?" the Master replied easily, his amusement obviously slowly fading but not quite gone just yet. He walked casually over to Owen's side, motioning for the guards to let their prisoner go.

Letting Owen collapse to the floor, the guards stepped aside and Jack watched as Owen pulled himself back up so that he was standing on his knees. The Master carded his fingers through Owen's short hair like he was a prized pet and smiled as Owen hissed angrily at him and tried to jerk away only to find himself held down by the Master's grip on his hair.

"Oi, I'm not a bloody pet," Owen spat out rebelliously.

The Master roughly yanked Owen's head to the side until it was at a painful angle and leaned in closely to say kindly, "I think you'll find that you are," and then threw him to the floor and stepped on his back to keep him there.

"Now Jack," the Master continued calmly, as if he wasn't stepping on the back of a snarling, twisting, prisoner, "How about now? Do you still not recognize him? I think this is his good angle." He looked down to smile at the man underneath his foot still spitting creative invectives.

Jack's eyes narrowed and he clenched his teeth but answered, "I keep telling you. I've never seen him before in my life."

"Then you won't mind if I do this then." And the Master got out his laser screwdriver and aimed it down at Owen's neck.

Obviously sensing that something bad was about to happen, Owen started to really struggle and Jack's eyes widened as the Master prepared to turn his laser screwdriver on.

"No!" Jack shouted at the last moment and the Master thankfully paused, looking up with a pleased smile.

"So you do know him," he said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. Just don't do that," Jack replied, his eyes locked on the Master's screwdriver, wanting to make sure it didn't go anywhere near Owen again.

The Master smiled again. "Ah, but then how would I have any fun?" And he turned back to Owen and turned on the screwdriver without another word.

Owen's scream rang through the room and then suddenly went silent as Jack closed his eyes, not wanting to see Owen's dead body collapse to the floor. But he told himself to get over it and opened his eyes again to find the Master coming closer to him with yet another pleased smile, just leaving Owen's corpse lying there. Jack glared mutinously at him, clenching his teeth against the angry words that wanted to come.

"There," the Master said pleasantly. "Wasn't that nice of me? To let you be witness to your friend's death? Not many people get to know that it was their fault their friends are dead. How does it feel?" And he looked as if he really wanted to know.

Jack grit his teeth but managed to spit out sarcastically, "It feels great."

It felt horrible.

The Master gave him a mild look of disapproval as he fingered a knife on the table of weapons kept nearby just for the Master's convenience in torturing him. "Now what did I tell you about that sarcasm?" he asked as he took the knife and came closer to his prisoner.

"Fuck you," Jack said.

"That wasn't it." The Master smirked and lashed out with the knife, plunging it into Jack's side. So used to the pain, Jack merely grunted as the Master pulled the knife out and his blood began to spill onto the floor. Putting the knife down, the Master smiled one last time at Jack's pained expression and turned to leave the room.

"Leave them," he commanded and the guards obediently followed him out of the room, leaving Jack to slowly bleed to death with only Owen's dead body for company.

Maybe when he woke up they would have at least taken Owen's body away. He knew they would never clean.

Jack gasped and sat up suddenly in his bed, looking around himself frantically as he tried to remember where he was. He wasn't on the Valiant. He was back at the Hub. Martha had succeeded and he was free. Funny how it took a few minutes to remember that.

Gradually calming down, his breathing slowing to a more normal pace, Jack brought his knees up to his chest and let his head fall down to rest there. He felt pathetic curling up like this, but he also needed the comfort, the dream-memory still crystal clear in his mind. He could still hear Owen's dying scream in his ears, the pain of the knife wound almost secondary to the knowledge that if it wasn't for him Owen would still be alive.

Owen. The snarky doctor with a heart. He was almost like a son to him. What had he been doing? Helping refugees in Russia? Good for him.

At least he could take comfort in the fact that Owen's death had been relatively quick if not exactly painless. Toshiko hadn't had that luxury and he had only heard of Gwen's death secondhand but it hadn't sounded like a nice way to go either. Only Ianto had survived, or at least Jack thought he had because the Master had never been able to discover what had happened to him. And that was good enough as alive for Jack to keep up some degree of hope.

And he was so pathetically grateful for that one bit of hope because it allowed him to go on with his charade that everything was okay. That the daily torture sessions and death didn't bother him. That the deaths of Owen, Tosh, and Gwen hadn't nearly destroyed him. That the weekly scares for Martha's life every time the Master said he'd killed her weren't taking years off his life every time. That the knowledge that he could possibly spend the rest of his life chained in that cell, being tortured and starved and killed in every way imaginable, until the Master's very long life was over didn't scare him witless. And they didn't even know what number regeneration the bastard was on so it feasibly could last for another two thousand years.

He thanked a God he didn't believe in for the fact that the Master wasn't interested in rape. It seemed like something he'd do, but apparently the Time Lord aversion to freaks and sex kept him safely away. Jack didn't know what he would have done if he'd had to deal with something like a daily rape on top of everything else. As it was, after the year was over and the clock was turned back, Jack already highly suspected that he wasn't quite sane anymore after what the bastard had done to him. Who could be?

He'd done a marvelous job of pretending for the Doctor, Martha, and Martha's family though and finding his team safe and sound had done a lot to restore him. It was only too bad that Ianto had moved on and the team blamed him for abandoning them. Though he was just so grateful for them all to be alive for him to resent them their anger or Ianto's new boyfriend.

Now if only he could keep it together for a little while longer. Sooner or later the memories had to fade away and he was doing all he could to move the memories quickly along by trying to replace them with new memories of a happy, alive, and much closer-knit team.

It was just really too bad about Ianto moving on.

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Stephen had finally agreed to showing Ianto his flat and it wasn't nearly as messy as Ianto had feared it would be. Obviously Stephen had bit the bullet and actually cleaned. All of the shelves were orderly, he could see faint vacuum tracks on the carpet, nothing was dusty, even the trash was taken out. Ianto was actually somewhat impressed.

"So?" Stephen asked from where he had stood back to let Ianto look the place over. "Does it pass?"

Ianto turned away from examining the room to smile at his boyfriend. "It's nice. You cleaned."

"Well anything for you and all that," Stephen said with shrug before starting to lead Ianto in the direction of the bedroom. "C'mon. Let me show you how clean the bedroom is."

"Oh yeah. This is romance," Ianto said sarcastically as he let himself be led into the adjoining room, which was, admittedly, rather clean.

"Hey," Stephen said, pretending to be wounded by the barb. "I _cleaned_ for you. What do you want me to do? Go out and hunt down dinner with my bare teeth? Would that be good enough for you, your Highness?"

"No, no, this is fine. Thank you," Ianto said, not wanting to sound unappreciative.

"Good. Then take off your pants," Stephen said even as he started to pull his own shirt over his head.

Ianto rolled his eyes but obediently began to unbutton his pants. "A please would be nice, at least," he muttered.

Stephen rolled his own eyes, but obliged him, saying. "Fine. Take off your pants, _please_."

"I guess that'll have to do," Ianto said, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off even as across from him Stephen was having a little trouble getting out of his own pants. Finally stepping out of his pants and throwing them casually across the room, Stephen reached out and pulled Ianto down onto the bed with him. Shutting him up with his mouth, soon there was no more complaints.

Later, the next day, the alarm went off at almost 8 o'clock. It was Sunday so Ianto didn't actually have work unless the Rift spit something out, but Stephen did and he rolled over with a grumble to hit the snooze button. Fifteen minutes later, the alarm went off again and Stephen finally dragged himself out of bed. Left in the bed, blinking at the ceiling, Ianto stayed there for a few more minutes, just waking up, before letting out a sigh and getting out of bed himself.

He didn't have any clothes with him so he found his boxers and clothes from the day before, put them on, and sleepily made his way out into Stephen's main room and to his kitchen to see if he had any coffee. But, fumbling around in the cupboards, Ianto came across something weird in the way back of the cupboard. It looked like an egg timer, but Ianto had enough experience with alien technology to recognize something that was not from this Earth. But it did have English writing on it so maybe it was just something new he hadn't heard of yet.

But then if it was something he hadn't heard of yet then it was probably obscenely expensive and rare because he knew everything. So how had Stephen, a British waiter for a local breakfast place with no A-levels, gotten enough money to buy something expensive that he obviously didn't use?

Maybe it was from the Shopping Channel. They had things on there that were cheap and unheard of, right?

"What are you looking at?" Stephen mumbled, walking into the room as he rubbed at his eyes, wearing only a towel.

"This," Ianto said, holding out his find. "I was looking for coffee," he explained before Stephen could ask if he was searching through his stuff.

Stephen seemed to look at the thing in Ianto's hand and freeze for just a second before turning away with a yawn so that Ianto could almost convince himself that the freeze hadn't happened. "Oh. That."

"What is it?" Ianto asked, looking at the thing in his hand questioningly.

"It's an egg timer," Stephen said as if it were obvious. "Can't you tell?"

"It doesn't look like an egg timer," Ianto said suspiciously even if it did actually kind of look like one.

"It's a new kind," Stephen explained. "I got it at that new store. Um, Branden's, Bronden's, Bradhem's." Stephen waved a hand vaguely in the air. "You know, something with a B."

Ianto was still suspicious, but he let it go. "Okay. Sorry. I was just curious."

Stephen waved the apology off as if he didn't care, walking over to a different cupboard to pull out some coffee. "Here," he said, putting the coffee bag down on the counter next to Ianto. "Coffee. Can you make some for me too? I have to go change."

"Sure," Ianto agreed, before putting the "egg-timer" to the side and moving closer to the coffee machine. He waited until Stephen was in his bedroom before taking out his mobile and taking a quick picture. He'd show that to Tosh and see what she said.

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TBC


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